


Letting Go

by Chiomi



Series: Kill Your Heroes [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Dark, Gen, Hawk Moth is Gabriel Agreste, Identity Reveal, Minor Character Death, POV Alternating, Parent-Child Relationship, Secret Identity, Slow Build, Trauma, like seriously angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-09
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-22 13:43:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 18,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7441432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chiomi/pseuds/Chiomi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adrien took a deep breath, though it was unnecessary for anything but his nerves. “I know you don’t want - you’ve never wanted to reveal our identities to each other, but you might want to rethink your position. I’m pretty sure my dad is Hawk Moth, and he might have figured out I’m Cat Noir.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stars fall at my feet

**Author's Note:**

> I only started watching Miraculous Ladybug a week and a half ago, but I'm obsessed now. First fic for ML, and yes, I have three other WIPs I need to finish, but the plot bit hard. Uh. Each chapter should be about 1500 words, but I don't really do update schedules, so they'll be coming as they're done.
> 
> Unbetaed at the moment, so I'd be happy for feedback - especially if it needs additional tags.

Cat Noir raced across the roofs of Paris towards the sounds of destruction. Jumping over an alley five stories below always felt like he was dropping all of his troubles, all of his normal life, and flying on without them. The situation with his dad was harder to shake than most things, but he could still put it aside to be there for his Lady.

He arrived at the edge of the destruction zone only to be met by a cloud of ladybugs heading the opposite way. The building shifted minutely beneath him as some damage to the facade was repaired, and he watched Ladybug say something to the disoriented civilian who had probably been the akuma. When that was done, she looked up and around, spotting him easily. Her yoyo wrapped around the chimney behind him, and she joined him, grinning broadly. “Hey, Kitty.”

He took a deep breath, though it was unnecessary for anything but his nerves. Running across rooftops hadn’t winded him in months, which was its own kind of joy. “I know you don’t want - you’ve never wanted to reveal our identities to each other, but you might want to rethink your position. I’m pretty sure my dad is Hawk Moth, and he might have figured out I’m Cat Noir.”

She stared at him, eyes wide, shocked speechless, for long enough that another of her spots beeped away. “That’s something I need to know, then, but it’s probably even more important that you don’t know who I am.”

It hurt, but he couldn’t really blame her. Not even if it was based in suspicion that he’d go evil and join his father, but because if he knew, he might slip, and it would be worse for him to slip than anyone else. Even if she was thinking the worst of him right now, her reasoning made sense, and the last thing he ever wanted to do was endanger her unnecessarily. He nodded agreement, but he couldn’t keep the misery off his face. “Meet on the Eiffel Tower?”

“Ten minutes,” she said, and leapt away.

It felt like longer than ten minutes. But then, with the fog rolling in and chasing the last of the twilight, Paris felt too ethereal for something so mundane as time. Ladybug swung through the fog and landed next to him, high enough up and tucked away so they wouldn’t be easily photographed. Ladybug started winding her yoyo with far more attention than it usually required “Okay, why do you think your dad is Hawk Moth?”

“He had a book on kwamis in his safe and he was really, really overly interested in my ring when he finally noticed it.” Adrien couldn’t help but fidget with the ring. He wasn’t giving it up - not giving Plagg up - for anything.

Ladybug frowned. “The book is kind of incriminating, but we know there were other Miraculous wielders. He might just be a retired one.”

Adrien snorted. “My dad is not a hero. Plus there’s, uh, more circumstantial stuff? Do you want me to show you?”

Ladybug crossed her arms and turned to frown out at Paris as she thought. She let out a deep breath. “Yeah, tell me.”

“Claws in,” he said.

Ladybug’s hands flew up to cover her mouth. “Adrien!”

Adrien smiled awkwardly and waved his fingers before realizing that looked really silly and scratching at the back of his head. “Yeah. Um. Hi. My dad’s gone a lot, and his schedule is just blocked off as ‘busy’ for the time of all of the attacks. I stole his assistant’s tablet and checked for the last couple of weeks, and almost everything has who he’s with or what he’s doing except for these times that are just marked ‘busy.’ He doesn’t even have a location!”

“And all of the attacks at the school,” Ladybug whispered, horrified. She dropped her hands to her hips, squaring her posture like she was readying for a fight. “No, Gabriel Agreste can’t be Hawk Moth. He’s probably just working on a new collection, and he noticed the ring because it’s not something he designed. That’s the kind of thing he’d notice, right?”

Of course she didn’t believe him. Gabriel Agreste was famous, a great man. Why would she believe him just because he’d been her partner for eight months? Adrien shoved his hands in his pockets and looked down and away. His bitterness would be all over his face, he knew. He didn’t hide his feelings as Cat Noir, and it took a moment when the mask came off to bring the other mask back up.

Plagg, hovering between them, looked back and forth at each of their faces before making a huffing noise. “Gabriel Agreste doesn’t notice anything about his son unless he can use it,” he declared flatly. “Even if it weren’t for the book and the schedule and the school - you know, all that convincing stuff - just his noticing Adrien’s ring would be proof enough for me.”

Adrien couldn’t look up. It wasn’t like Plagg was wrong, but it still hurt to hear. His weird and terrible home life wasn’t something that was ever supposed to come into his time as Cat Noir - though apparently it was more tied in than he’d ever thought possible.

“Oh, Kitty,” Ladybug said, a terrible pity in her voice. He hated that almost as much as everything else, because he was her partner, not some victim. “Okay, so we need a plan. We need proof, and to keep you safe.”

“What can we even do? I’d kind of thought Hawk Moth was just, like, super-akumatized, or someone we could just tie up and leave in front of the police station, but he’s my  _ dad _ .” He couldn’t keep the anguish out of his voice. He didn’t like his dad much, but he loved him, and he was the fixed point in his life. Adrien’s dad was supposed to be immovable as firmament, not an obsessive villain who absolutely must be moved.

Ladybug put her hand on his shoulder, the first time she’d touched him all night. At least she wasn’t too disgusted with him for that. “I’m not sure yet, but we’ll figure it out, okay?”

He dragged his gaze up to look at her. “Okay. What should I do now?” Adrien knew he was too spun out to figure out what to do, and she was always the one with a clear plan.

“Do you think you’ll be safe at your house for right now? I know it’s risky, but you going missing would be really messy, and we’re going to need as much information as we can get.”

Adrien shuddered. “Yeah, I can do that.”

“And I’ll get a decoy ring so that he won’t be able to take your Miraculous from you.”

“Don’t bother,” Plagg said, startling them both. “He can’t take it from you directly. There’s this whole consent thing that matters. Cheese?”

Adrien sighed and dug in his pocket for the tin of emergency camembert he kept there.

Ladybug was staring at Plagg. “Does that mean that none of the akumas could have taken them from us?”

Plagg shoved a triangle of camembert in his face and swallowed without apparently chewing. “No, they totally could’ve. We’re cranky and in agreement, not omnipotent. If you tried to steal his ring, Tikki would abandon you, like I’d abandon him if he went for your earrings. Hawk Moth just wants to keep Nooroo.”

Adrien sighed, and didn’t know how he still expected anyone close to him to be honest or forthcoming about anything. At least he had Nino. “You knew he held a Miraculous?”

At the same time, Ladybug asked, “You can tell who holds what Miraculous?”

“I thought it was obvious? Anyway, I can’t tell who holds what - no idea who you are under the mask, buglet - and we can’t sense each other, but we’re really old and it’s not like we switch up forms. Tikki is always Ladybug, Nooroo is always Hawk Moth - though usually he’s a hero and not a jerk.” He frowned, then grabbed another piece of cheese. He actually bothered to chew this time. “I don’t know why he’s cooperating with him. It’s no fun abandoning a chosen, but we recover eventually.”

Ladybug let out her breath in relief. “Well, at least he can’t take it from you directly.” She put on an obviously forced smile that nevertheless warmed his heart - she was trying, for him. “And he might not even know! He could just suspect.”

He stepped into her and rested his forehead on hers. “I’ll hope some of your luck has rubbed off, then, my Lady.”

He really did hope it had. Playing undercover agent in his own house was not a game he was all that interested in, nor one he was sure he’d win. He’d do it, though, because his Lady had asked it of him, and because it needed to be done.

His dad was a villain, and he needed to go down.


	2. what I thought I knew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette buried her face in her pillow to muffle her scream and kicked her feet futilely against the bed. It wasn’t like there was anything she could do with the frustration boiling inside her, but it needed some kind of outlet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I did not expect this volume of response! I'm on [tumblr](http://uswe.tumblr.com/), come talk to me! Also still no beta, and my regular betas don't watch ML, so please let me know if there are any errors or, even better, if you'd like to beta.

Marinette buried her face in her pillow to muffle her scream and kicked her feet futilely against the bed. It wasn’t like there was anything she could do with the frustration boiling inside her, but it needed some kind of outlet. Her diary was out on her bed, ready for her to write, but today was just too much to sort out coherently yet. Gabriel Agreste had been her idol since she was ten years old, a designer who’d carved out his own business with determination and beautiful clothes. She’d obsessively studied his flair for unpredictable spots of color and drama in collections based on cool elegance to develop her own sense of balance and mood in design. Parts of his 2010 Spring/Summer collection had been the first thing she’d ever pinned on her inspiration board. Winning an Agreste junior fashion competition had been a dream come true even separate from the opportunity to have her crush model something she’d made. Gabriel Agreste was her hero. “Tikki, what do I do?”

“I think you were right not to tell him,” she said, nibbling on a macaron. “But now you need to figure out how to help him.”

She rolled onto her back to stare up at the skylight. It said a lot about how terrible everything was that she’d been able to forget the more important revelations of the evening even for a moment. “We need surveillance equipment or something, right? How do you even get that?”

“Why do you need surveillance equipment? Plagg already said he’s sure,” Tikki said, sounding genuinely puzzled.

“Because the Agreste family is really rich, and M. Agreste knows everyone, and if we even want the police to arrest him, we need incontrovertible proof.” The skylight doesn’t show stars; you can rarely see any but the brightest stars from anywhere but the top of the Eiffel Tower. With the combination of the roof canopy and being a few stories up, the skylight mostly showed dark, but there’s enough hint of light at the edges to be a reminder that they were still in the middle of the city. Those hints of light didn’t leaven the darkness outside nearly enough, and being in the middle of the city wasn’t a comfort at the moment. Paris was her city, both her birthplace as Marinette and her birthplace as Ladybug. Paris was what she fought to protect, and her city loved her for it. But Paris was also an old city, and loved herself and her history as well. Paris loved her history as a center of fashion and loved fashion. Marinette wasn’t sure whether, in the end, Paris would love Ladybug and Cat Noir more than fashion.

Marinette sighed and put her diary back in the box. She jumped down from the loft, box in hand, so she could curl up in her chaise longue. She couldn’t see the skylight from the chaise, and so with the blinds closed her room was just a cozy pink box. A cozy pink box she could deal with. Poor Adrien. He didn’t have any kind of sanctuary from this. She got her diary back out and tried to put her thoughts in order.

> _ Dear Diary, _
> 
> _ I guess I got my wish to be closer to Adrien, even if it’s not the way I expected. And he won’t even know it’s me! It’s confusing - he’s nothing like Cat Noir! Adrien’s quiet and shy and kind - though Cat is kind, too. But Cat’s so much more outgoing, and he flirts with me, though Adrien doesn’t even know I exist. I guess Adrien likes Ladybug and not Marinette. He’d probably be disappointed if he knew. Though, mon Dieu, his disappointment would be the least of our problems right now. Earlier today I was just worried about akuma, eventually planning to find Hawk Moth, and now everything is so much worse.  _
> 
> _ And then I sent him back into danger! _
> 
> _ I’m so confused. I think it was the right thing to do, to ask that of him. But I’m so worried. He’s not just my crush - he’s my partner. Ever since I met him, I’ve felt connected to him, and that’s just grown over time. I trust him with my life, and he’s incredibly important to me. I should have his back in this. I want to have his back on this, to be right there in case he needs backup. But I can’t - Ladybug showing up would be confirmation that he’s Cat Noir, and Marinette showing up would be suspicious, as well as outing me to Adrien. I know he wouldn’t betray me on purpose, not ever, but it’s so much safer if he doesn’t know, for him and for me. _

A large part of her didn’t want to think that M. Agreste would hurt his son even if he found out. They were family. Families were supposed to protect each other and support each other. Marinette had never felt anything but loved and supported by her own family. She couldn’t - it was terrible to imagine having to tell them, because she was trying so hard to keep life as Ladybug a safe buffer from her real life, but she had imagined it. She was certain all the way down to her bones that they’d be proud of her, and worried for her safety, but her home would still be her refuge.

It broke her heart that home wasn’t a refuge for Adrien. She’d known his home life wasn’t great, that his father was distant. But she’d thought it was just in a normal way, that they just weren’t super close, though that was hard enough to believe. But it wasn’t just not a refuge. Maybe his dad couldn’t take his Miraculous from him directly, but he could make his life a nightmare. Her imagination couldn’t provide any details, because the worst her parents had ever done was ground her, but lack of imagination just left her with a blank yawning horror of what might happen to him.

She wasn’t going to be able to get more of her thoughts down coherently on paper, so Marinette put her diary away in the box and set it down on her floor. She’d been less careful about tucking it away since she made the magic box. She didn’t really ever expect her parents to snoop, and Alya respected her privacy as much as anyone’s, but it had already come in handy with Sabrina, and if anyone was going to try to go after her secrets she’d rather they not trash her room first. They wouldn’t be able to read it, anyway, not without either her key or welding tools. It made the perfect trap.

But how would they make a perfect trap for Hawk Moth? It was so far out of what she was used to planning. How to attack an akuma, how to design an outfit, those she could plan. But this was - this was a grown-up problem. Marinette scrubbed her hands over her face, then trudged back up to her bed. She’d have to figure out how to talk to her parents about it in the morning.

-

It took Marinette forever to fall asleep, so she was still half-dreaming when her alarm went off. Which, in turn, meant that she only woke up to her mom opening the trapdoor to shout, “Marinette! You’ll be late!”

She jerked upright, nearly crushing a bleary Tikki with her flailing. “Oh, no,” she moaned, looking at the time. She scrambled down the stairs. “Yes, Maman, thanks, I’m up!”

She raced through getting ready, but it still wasn’t enough to let her have a conversation with her parents, especially because the breakfast rush had already started in the patisserie. There was fruit and a croissant on a plate in the kitchen, and she split those with Tikki. She still had time, maybe, to have a rushed conversation with her parents, but this wasn’t a conversation she wanted to rush, and she really wanted to check on Adrien. Nothing should have happened in just one night, right?

Sabine popped up from the patisserie again, and looked relieved when she saw Marinette awake and almost ready to go. She came over and pressed a kiss to Marinette’s hair. “Have a good day in school, mon chou. And set your alarm tomorrow!”

“I will, Maman.” She hesitated, filled with overwhelming affection and gratitude for her non-villainous parents. “I hope you have a good day, too. I love you.”

“Love you, too,” she said absently, already heading back downstairs to help with the rush. “Remember to put your plate in the dishwasher.”

Marinette gave Tikki the last of her breakfast and put away her plate, then restocked the emergency cookies she kept in a baggie for Tikki. Now didn’t seem the time to start being underprepared for akuma.


	3. Right before it rains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adrien is not having a great day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to dam_pjo_fandom for the beta - remaining errors are my own. I tend to not update tags with anything that's not in the story yet, but I'm going to update the tags on here with everything that's in my outline just for fair warning.

Gabriel was at breakfast, which was unusual enough on its own. He was reading on his tablet and utterly ignoring Adrien, but it still raised alarm bells. Adrien could feel the suspicion and rage vibrating off Plagg from inside his pocket, and it was incredibly comforting. At least someone was on his side.

Adrien ate neatly and precisely, because any failure of manners would be met with harsh criticism, and he was so used to close surveillance that at this point it was second nature. Plagg didn’t make a peep, and Gabriel said nothing, so breakfast was silent but for the muted sounds of cutlery. Eventually it was acceptable for Adrien to flee, so he pushed back from the table and said, “Excuse me.”

“Of course,” Gabriel said.

Hopefully that would be all they spoke to each other. It would probably be effective if he, like, snooped in his dad’s office, or asked pointed questions, but Adrien didn’t think he could manage to do so with any kind of subtlety. He’d try after school, maybe? Hopefully he’d be able to find a way to talk to Ladybug before then. She’d said she’d come up with something, and she knew who he was, so she should be able to track him down if she came up with an idea. Adrien stopped by the kitchen to pilfer more camembert for Plagg, then got in the car. His phone beeped as he buckled in, and he found his schedule from Natalie. School, Chinese, fencing, and then his study time broken into blocks. A typical schedule with nothing overtly suspicious in it. He thumped his head back against the seat. Being on high alert was basically the opposite of fun, and he wasn’t going to be able to spot anything actually evidentiary if he was jumping at shadows.

He arrived at school right as Nino was walking up, which was, as far as he was concerned, perfect timing. Nino lit up when he spotted Adrien, making a beeline towards him and slinging an arm over Adrien’s shoulder so they could walk in together. “You look like shit, dude.”

“Love you, too,” Adrien replied dryly. “Didn’t sleep all that much.”

“Studying for finals? Yeah, I totally should have been, but I got distracted. I’m probably going to just end up cramming the night before like usual.”

If Adrien’s house weren’t, well, the way it was, he’d invite Nino over to study. His tutors had always expected daily incremental progress, so he’s had a study system for years. Still, they could go to the library or something. “Do you want to study together? I’ve got pretty okay notes.”

“That’d be awesome! Tonight?” Nino slid into his seat.

Adrien grimaced. “Can’t, it’s not in the schedule. Tomorrow? I can email Natalie now.”

Nino shook his head. “Harsh, dude. I always forget how weird your home life is. Hey, Alya. Hey, Marinette.”

“Hey,” Adrien said, smiling vaguely at both of them. Marinette was normally kind of shy around him, which was at least better than the hostility at the beginning of the year. She wasn’t shy around anyone else, so he didn’t know what her deal was, but at least she didn’t react to him the way she reacted to Chloe. He thought they might even be friends now. Instead of shy, though, this morning she looked stricken when she met his gaze. She stared at him like he’d killed her kitten for two long moments before seeming to recover herself and looking down at the desk.

It stung, because he hadn’t done anything to deserve that kind of look. Things were bad enough without his classmate deciding she had a problem with him. Adrien slumped into his seat.

Behind him, the girls picked up their conversation, something about a habitual pastry thief at Marinette’s parents’ shop.

“So I was thinking surveillance cameras,” Marinette eventually concluded. “Small, though! We don’t want to make the regular customers uncomfortable, just to be able to turn the evidence over to the police. Where do you even find that?”

“Ooh, there’s this spy shop on Rue de Sèvres that should have stuff. It’s mostly, like, novelties, y’know? But I know they have electronics, too.” The fact that Alya knew offhand about where to get espionage equipment should probably be immensely worrying, but if she’d been planning to spy more on Cat Noir and Ladybug she’d have done it already.

Adrien didn’t care anymore if Marinette hated him forever and convinced Alya to as well: she was brilliant. How do you bring down someone seen as above suspicion? Video evidence. Or even just audio - he had to slip and talk to his kwami at some point when they were alone. Mme. Bustier began taking attendance, and Adrien answered absently, already using his phone to find the closest place to get any kind of mini camera. There had to be somewhere he could walk during lunch. He could take initiative, start the ball rolling so this would be over faster. Ladybug would probably even be impressed that he’d thought to do it.

He had to start taking notes when Mme. Bustier started in on the actual class, but he still managed to keep looking at his phone under his desk. There wasn’t any kind of nearby specialty shop, but there was a department store with an electronics department. The website hinted that it had real electronics and not just phone accessories, so it was worth checking out. As a bonus, there was an ATM between school and the department store, so he’d be able to pay cash. The idea that he could do something prickled, making him shift restlessly every couple of minutes. This was something he could do, so he wanted to _do_  it. He knew, intellectually, that this wasn’t an akuma fight, that it was as far from an akuma fight as could be and so his sense of urgency was misplaced. But knowing wasn’t feeling, and he was so used to idea translating immediately to execution that he couldn’t help the adrenal reaction.

That was actually probably why he would wreck the whole thing. He was too impatient, and too desperate for this to be over. But there was no escape from the waking nightmare, and somehow he needed to rein in his impulse to try. Slow and careful would be the only way to get through this whole ordeal. Reminding himself over and over of that fact didn’t make it any easier to sit still through the morning.

As soon as they were dismissed for lunch, he made his excuses to Nino in a long, unintelligible string and walked as quickly as he could out of the school. They only had an hour, and he had no idea how long it would take to find exactly what he needed. He grabbed as much cash as the ATM would let him and headed into the store.

“Don’t forget lunch,” Plagg said. “This place will have cheese, right?”

Adrien sighed dramatically, but he was smiling. Plagg’s demands and unwavering priorities were a constant in his life. “After, okay?”

“Hmph,” Plagg said, but he didn’t move from inside Adrien’s shirt.

The electronics section wasn’t hard to find, and Adrien apparently should not have worried about the availability of small cameras. It was kind of disturbing how many were available, and definitely disturbing were the implications about how people would want to use them. Did anyone in real life ask their staff to dress that way? Who hired a nanny who looked like they were still in university? What was wrong with people? Ugh. Well, they looked like they would do what he needed them to. The audio equipment was pretty much the same, though the pictures were less lurid. He did some quick math and grabbed as many as he could afford with what he had on him. Planting them would be another matter, especially because he hadn’t been inside his dad’s corporate office in months. It’d be weird if he went now. The home office he could do, though, and maybe his briefcase. His briefcase would actually be the best thing, though Adrien had a hard time imagining him taking the briefcase with him on villainous tasks. It would be worth trying, though.

Walking out of the store with his bags of surveillance equipment felt enough like getting something done that it quieted some of his restlessness. It was even more satisfying to find a quiet corner to slip Plagg food and let him out and get everything out of the packaging. He was expected, in the normal course of things, to unwrap packages carefully, which made it tremendously satisfying to rip everything apart and shove the ragged pieces of cardboard and plastic haphazardly in his shopping bags to throw out.

Filling his pockets with everything ruined their line, but hopefully no one would notice before he had a chance to stick things in his bag. He made sure to keep a set of instructions from each type as well as the driver CDs he’d need. Plagg would have to share his chest pocket until he could stop by his locker. He didn’t complain, though, and Adrien walked back to school with a bounce in his step. He was finally _doing_  something.

That hopeful feeling fled as he got back in sight of school. The sight of Chloe berating someone these days unfailingly meant an akuma was about to arrive. Adrien had kind of expected the number of people trying to kill her might have taught her the utility of kindness, but she didn’t seem to even see the connection between what she said and what happened immediately after.

The girl Chloe was talking to broke away, crying, and fled into the school.

Adrien sighed, and ducked into the alley behind the school. “Plagg, claws out!”


	4. keep me grounded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An akuma and a conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea how non-political parents would respond to this kind of request for advice, so now Tom and Sabine met during the 1995 strikes. Sabine worked for Air France, Tom worked in some other union, they met at an anarcho-syndicalist meeting and eventually decided to run away and start a bakery.
> 
> Also, this is the end of Act 1 - you'll note there's now an estimated total of 12 chapters. I might take a couple days to get Act 2 completely finalized. Though who knows! I remain bad at schedules.

Marinette brought macarons back to school to share with Alya - and, more covertly, Tikki - and had just finished one when she heard the telltale sounds of havoc breaking free. She tensed, trying to think up an excuse to run away, but they were the only ones back in the classroom, so there was another option, too. “Does that sound like an akuma?”

“Oh my God,” Alya declared, sounding completely exasperated. She dug out her phone and opened the camera app. “Some days I think we should just put a muzzle on Chloe. Hopefully I can get there before Ladybug!”

Alya looked both ways in the hallway, then ran towards the noise, phone leading the way. Marinette followed her to the door and looked both ways, too. The halls were clear except for Alya, at least so far. She shut the door and tucked herself out of sight of the window. “Tikki, spots on!”

The transformation didn’t take long, and she felt stronger and more sure of herself, the way she almost always did with the mask on. The classroom windows only opened in the top section, but that wasn’t a problem as Ladybug, so she slipped out and around the school to the front. Swinging through the entrance left her confronted with all the students she knew struck with dramatic and painful-looking acne. Marinette sighed, and her heart ached for the latest of Hawk Moth’s victims. It usually did; they might all take their feelings in the worst possible direction, but they started out feeling awful, and that feeling was just magnified beyond all enduring.

She took the stairs three at a time, and spotted Cat ahead of her just on the second floor. He looked back at her. “That was fast! I’ve got her trapped in this classroom, but I don’t know where the akuma is.”

“Did you see who it was?” Marinette knew a few people who might have had this particular kind of weakness. She peered in the classroom window, but couldn’t even tell the gender of the costumed villain throwing desks around in an undirected rage.

“Jeanne, I think. I saw Chloe talking to her outside.”

Jeanne spotted them at the door and threw the next desk straight towards them. Marinette turned to get her face out of sight, putting her back to the wall. “I feel like eventually we’re going to assume Chloe caused an akuma and it was something else completely and everything’s going to go wrong because of it.”

“With my luck,” he said, “definitely.”

“Let me out,” came a dramatic screech. “We’ll see how Chloe likes it!” Jeanne pounded on the other side of the door.

“Looks like your luck is still holding, though,” he said, grinning. His staff was wedged in the door handle, preventing the door from swinging in. Cat would be able to hold it closed pretty much indefinitely. He seemed to take that as a great excuse to talk. “Oh, and I figured out how to bring Hawk Moth down! I got surveillance equipment, and I’m going to plant it all over - he’s got to do some kind of obvious scheming, right? Or we can catch his transformation.”

Oh, good, Adrien had picked up her hint. “Great! Anything that proves who he is - evidence of the wrong he’s done as Hawk Moth is pretty thick on the ground.” Marinette spotted Alya filming from the stairwell, and kind of wished she’d stay a safer distance away.

Jeanne pounded on the door again, and the wood blistered up. The blisters radiated outward, and the door handle started to bubble, too. Cat Noir, eyes wide, ripped his baton out of the door. He leapt back to the other side of the hall, and Marinette stepped away from the wall so they’d be in a position to stop Jeanne before she got away. Jeanne burst out, and Marinette was able to get her yoyo around her legs before she took more than two steps into the hall.

Jeanne fell, looking surprised, but she immediately started reaching for her ankles. Cat Noir slammed his baton down across her body, not hitting her but holding her so that she’d have to get through him to get to her feet.

Marinette looked her over, trying to remember what she knew of Jeanne’s usual appearance to see what was the same. She barely knew Jeanne! The soft headband, though, was off-color-scheme. “It’s in the headband!”

She gave a hard yank to the yoyo, getting Jeanne more discombobulated and freeing it. Cat Noir grabbed Jeanne’s headband and darted away from her, taking up a position between her and Alya, still on the stairs. He used his claws to shred the headband, freeing the akuma just as Marinette got the yoyo back in her hand. She purified the akuma and cleared the damage just as the warning bell rang.

It kind of gave Marinette a thrill. She’d been kind of worried that she’d be off, knowing that Adrien was Cat Noir, letting the awkwardness of her crush bleed over. But they’d worked together better than ever, perfectly in sync. She grinned at Cat Noir. “See ya!”

Finding a closet to detransform in and then running to class got her there just as the second bell rang, and she slid into her seat triumphant in that she hadn’t been late at all.

Even Adrien looked happier than he had earlier, and less anxious. Staring at the back of his head slowly drained some of Marinette’s ebullience. Yeah, okay, the quick victory had been great, but they still had so much work to do.

\--

Marinette finished her homework, then helped out at the shop until they closed. It was always cozy, closing up with her parents, though she didn’t do so often now that she had so many more extracurriculars piling up. The big ovens were already off and cooled, and her dad wiped them down while Marinette took out the garbage and her mom took care of the front. She got to talk about school while they were working on clearing out the display cases; her mom set aside a loaf of bread for dinner, but the remaining loaves and the few remaining pastries - which were never as good the next day - went in their crate for the food pantry.

“I saw on the Ladyblog that there was another attack at your school,” her mom said.

Marinette squirmed. Her parents worrying was the worst part of the whole secret identity thing. She ducked her head inside one of the cases just so she wouldn’t need to look at her mom. “How old are these bagels? And yeah, but it was fast. I didn’t even notice there was an incident until it was almost over.”

“That’s good. And they’re from this morning, mon chou. Grab that Danish, though.”

Marinette grabbed the Danish and handed it over. Her mom nestled it into the crate, then nodded, satisfied. Her parents always baked more bread than they expected to sell for just this reason, but it was better for the shop’s bottom line if there weren’t too many other leftovers. “Pierre should be here in just a minute, so why don’t you head upstairs to wash up for dinner?”

Her parents were up shortly after her, and they all got to sit down to dinner. Marinette buttered her bread and tried to think about how to word this. “Um, so I think I know someone is doing something bad, but I can’t prove it. Plus he’s rich, and respected, so I don’t know how to make anyone listen to me.”

Her parents exchanged worried looks. Marinette bit her lip and hoped they didn’t ask her for more details, because she had no idea how to get them to believe her. If they didn’t believe her, what hope did she and Adrien of getting the police to believe her? But even if they didn’t, they should be able to give general advice, probably.

“Well,” her dad started slowly, “the first thing is whether this is something you, personally, have to do by yourself. There are a lot of good people in the world who want to stop corruption, and they might already be working on it. Sabine and I met because we were part of unions that were all working together.”

“And you know we’re always on your side,” her mom said, hands carefully folded over the table.

Marinette’s stomach knotted. Their unquestioning support was such a relief, but it wasn’t - it wasn’t an option. Not with kwamis involved. They wouldn’t be safe. “I know, Maman. I- I’ll have to think about it. I’m not sure who else would know. I’ll tell you when I figure it out.”

There was a potent pause, then her dad reached over to put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Okay, Marinette. And remember, you can always set things on fire and talk to journalists!”

“Tom!” Her mom threw the rest of the loaf of bread at him, and he caught it one-handed, cackling.


	5. Broken by design

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Adrien backflips away from his problems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually have, like, a buffer now? It's weird. So I'll at least be updating tomorrow.

The Agreste mansion wasn’t just big, it was old. The various waves of destruction and rebuilding had changed it a lot over time, but every wave of rebuilding had added to what was already there rather than tearing it down and starting from scratch.

What that meant: secret passages.

Adrien had played hide and seek in them with his mom when he was younger, both of them emerging, covered in dust, in unexpected parts of the house. It had been their favorite game on days the outdoors were inhospitable, and he couldn’t count the number of times they’d played. After she disappeared, he’d mapped them compulsively, some part of him thinking he might find her in some hidden corner. Even as that grief-stricken notion faded, he’d explored them, and tried to memorize all the hidden ways in.

He was pretty sure his dad considered them irrelevant, when he considered them at all, which made them perfect. He planted a recorder outside his dad’s bedroom and a tiny camera poking through the crack left by the hidden door to his office. His dad was out of the office, probably either at his corporate office or doing something nefarious, so Adrien slipped into the office. He closed the hidden door, making sure the camera wasn’t visible, then proceeded to plant video and audio wherever he could. He wanted complete coverage of the room, since the chances he’d be able to plant them somewhere else were slim, and his dad’s kwami would probably make some kind of appearance in here. He kept a couple in reserve, just in case the opportunity came up, and slipped back into the hidden passage.

The only downside of the whole venture was that the secret passages, being, well, secret, were filthy. He arrived back at his room with cobwebs in his hair and dust on him everywhere he’d brushed against the walls.

“Wow, you’re gross,” Plagg said, not stirring from his spot at Adrien’s computer. He was addicted to reading any kind of news that related to their and Ladybug’s adventures. Paris’ infatuation with her heroes meant that there was always plenty for him to read.

“Thanks,” Adrien said dryly, getting the electronics out of his pockets and putting them on the desk. He stripped off his shirt and tossed it in the hamper, following it with everything else. He didn’t want any of it touching his skin anymore. “Always what a guy likes to hear. Be right back.” He grabbed some clean clothes and headed into the bathroom.

He’d always liked the feeling of being clean, but it had ramped up dramatically since he’d become Cat Noir. He took his time in the shower, and felt almost normal again when he got out. He toweled off and got dressed in clean clothes, thinking about his homework and installing the drivers and studying for finals - he still needed to email Natalie about having Nino over.

His thoughts came to an abrupt halt as he exited the bathroom to find his father staring directly at Plagg. Plagg who was hovering in the air painfully, obviously alive.

“Well, this makes things easy,” Gabriel said with a sniff, turning to Adrien. “Give me your Miraculous, Adrien.”

“Why?” The question ripped out of him, raw and painful.

“I’m going to bring your mother back.”

That hurt as much as anything else had, a fresh hard blow that he hadn’t been able to brace for. His mother’s disappearance - he’d tried so hard to think she wasn’t dead, tried hard not to think about it at all because he didn’t want her to be gone, much less gone on purpose or forever. But if she was really dead, he’d give nearly anything to get her back. He’d been fighting his father for nearly a year even though his end goal was something they both wanted. Why hadn’t his dad just told him? He brought his hand up, fingers hovering over the ring, but Plagg cut him off with an indelicate snort. “Yeah, that’d be great and all if she were actually dead.”

Adrien’s head was full of static. “What?”

“She might as well be,” Gabriel snarled. “She was going to _leave_.”

Horror started to tingle down his limbs, but he needed to know. “What happened instead?”

“I put her in a chrysalis, of course,” Gabriel said, as if the answer was so obvious that the question itself was stupid. As if imprisoning the woman you were supposed to love was normal, as if using magic to do it were expected and rational. “I had to find a way to make her stay, since she wouldn’t listen to reason. It took three years to find out that the Cat Noir and Ladybug kwamis could grant wishes, another year to figure out how to summon akumas and send them to people. You and Ladybug have added almost another year to this. A year! Your selfishness knows no bounds. By the time I make her love me again, we will have lost far too much time.”

Adrien’s selfishness. Of course. Because that was the issue. Adrien felt sick. He swallowed around the lump in his throat. “Plagg, claws out.”

Plagg, for some reason, grabbed Adrien’s cell phone on the way into the ring, and it looked like the phone was sucked in, too. Adrien didn’t have time to worry about that, though.

Before his father could respond, could start his own transformation or threaten him in any way, Adrien backflipped out the window. If only he could get away from all of his problems so easily. He ran, and stopped blocks away to throw up into an alley. Plagg popped out, and Adrien would worry about being seen, but the alley was dark and he needed comfort more than anonymity. Adrien stared vacantly down at the wet, stained wall. His dad didn’t even care that he’d been hunting down his own son for the past year. It was all about his own goal. His goal - Adrien could have had a mother for the past few years. She hadn’t died, or abandoned him. She’d only wanted a divorce! And he’d been robbed of years with her. 

He couldn’t stop shaking. His wrists, propping him up on the edge of the roof, were trembling and threatening to give out. He couldn’t handle it. He could - if he found his mom, he could rescue her, and they could just . . . leave. They could leave Paris. They could leave _France_ , and Gabriel wouldn’t be able to find them. Yeah, he’d be abandoning his duties as Cat Noir, but with them gone, Gabriel would have to just give up, right? They’d be free, but - “Plagg, is taking someone else’s Miraculous the only reason you would leave me?”

Plagg curled up in the crook of his neck. “Kid, if I hadn’t sworn, I’d be helping you steal your dad’s Miraculous as we speak.”

Adrien sighed, and tilted his head slightly to nuzzle Plagg. That was a comforting thought. Plagg had been there for him so much in the past year, he didn’t know what he’d do without him. Even if he didn’t have any reason to be Cat Noir again because there were no more akuma, having Plagg with him would be great. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Check your phone, for one.”

Adrien groped at the pocket where he habitually kept his phone, and it was there. Convenient. Plagg hadn’t told him that was something they could do. He got his phone out and unlocked it and found it open to his voice memo app. His heart skipped a beat, then thumped harder. “Plagg?”

“Yeah,” he said, sounding almost smug. For good reason - it’d been an argument about Plagg having access to his phone, because he said he was always bored during school, but he’d run up enough data usage that Natalie had sent Adrien a sharply worded email about paying attention in school. Adrien had locked it temporarily to his thumbprint, but Plagg had nagged him incessantly and been a distraction at work. They’d come to a truce about Plagg only playing games that didn’t use data and Adrien had set the lock to a swipe pattern. If this was what he thought, it would - he would give Plagg all of the camembert, and let him play whatever games he wanted whenever he liked.

Adrien hit playback on the most recent memo, and heard the entire conversation with his dad in glorious and awful perfect fidelity. This was - this was proof. This was a confession. This would - it would totally blow his secret identity, and ruin his life, but it was _proof_. He had to get this out, get people convinced so that they could just capture Gabriel Agreste and drop him off in front of a police station and everything would be taken care of. The story had to get out.

And he knew at least one person he could trust to tell the story from his perspective.

Adrien texted Alya.


	6. what I thought I knew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Justice and the justice system aren’t synonymous.

Marinette and Alya were more ‘studying’ than studying, but it was 8:30pm on a Thursday and they both deserved a break. Marinette was sketching absently while Alya updated the Ladyblog, a package of oreos open between them. Marinette was trying to think about what her parents had said and sketch the items on Alya’s desk at the same time, and it wasn’t going well. Either task. The combination was probably making it worse. Marinette really needed to practice drawing from life, but getting everything in perspective was stupidly hard. She switched to a darker color and deepened the shadows.

“Oh, hey,” Alya said. “Adrien just texted me. Should I tell him to come over?”

Marinette snapped the tip off her colored pencil. “What? What does he want?”

Alya didn’t look up from her texting. “He says he has something for the Ladyblog, but he wants my opinion before he submits.”

“Huh,” Marinette said, mind jumping into panicked overdrive. Had he found something already? What had he uncovered? Would he be arriving just ahead of a wave of akuma? Her hand rose unconsciously to touch her earring.

“Okay, he’ll be here in ten minutes. He must have been close by.”

He could have been almost anywhere in the city. The idea of Adrien as Cat Noir was still faintly surreal, but she was starting to reconcile the two. Well, she had to, didn’t she? He was about to arrive with something that would probably help them bring down his dad. She gave up on sketching and packed everything away. She was slipping Tikki a final oreo when she heard, distantly, the noise of Alya’s front door buzzer. Alya went to go let Adrien in, and Marinette brought her feet up on Alya’s bed so she could wrap her arms around her knees. She fidgeted, staring at the door.

Alya led him back, saying, “No, mom, we’re just going to be in my room for a bit. Marinette’s still here!”

Adrien came in and closed the door behind him, a flash of something like irritation on his face when he spotted Marinette. It hurt, that her partner now seemed to be markedly more uncomfortable with her, but she couldn’t blame him for being uncomfortable in general. He was going through a lot, and had no idea she knew.

“Um,” Adrien said, then pulled out his phone. “I have proof of who Hawk Moth is, and I wanted to give it to you to put on the Ladyblog.”

Alya dropped her laptop, barely recovering in time to keep it from hitting the floor. Eyes so wide they showed white all around the edges, she breathed, “What?”

“Yeah, I - um.” Adrien looked at the floor and rubbed the back of his head. “Uh. Surprise?”

He tapped on his phone. The conversation didn’t take very long. Marinette knew - she’d known - it had to be something like that for him to even be Hawk Moth, but it was so much worse than she could have expected. She felt tears brimming up and hugged her knees tighter.

“Oh my God,” Alya said. “Oh my God. I don’t even know where to start.”

Marinette kept her voice quiet so it wouldn’t waver or jar her tears loose. “This would expose your secret identity, too.”

“You’re Cat Noir!” The comment had apparently given Alya something to latch on to. “This whole time! And you didn’t tell me?”

“Alya,” Marinette said.

Adrien hunched his shoulders and shoved both hands in his pockets. “Anyone can be turned into an akuma, and it could be used against us.”

“Wait, does this mean you know who Ladybug is?”

“Alya,” Marinette said sharply. “Focus?”

Alya shook her head, trying to clear out the distractions. She sat in her desk chair and took a deep breath. “Okay. Adrien, I’m so sorry. I can’t believe your dad . . . But I can’t post it.”

It hit Marinette like a punch to the gut, and looked like it hit Adrien harder.

Adrien tried to clear his throat twice, then sat abruptly on the edge of the bed, close enough to Marinette that under normal circumstances she’d be deeply flustered. These weren’t normal circumstances, though. Adrien cleared his throat a third time. “Why not?”

Alya set her laptop aside and brought one of her heels up on the edge of her chair. “I’ve been doing some reading about admissibility because I film so many things that are technically crimes, and then reading about privacy stuff, and that recording is technically illegal.” Alya’s knuckles whitened where she was gripping her ankle, and she spit, “Article 9 of the Civil Code. Right to fucking privacy. It wouldn’t be any kind of grounds to bring charges against him. Also, being a creepy gross supervillain isn’t technically illegal. But, I mean, mostly your dad is really scary and I don’t think he’d hesitate to charge both of us - and, honestly, anyone he can prove saw it on the Ladyblog.”

“That can’t be right,” Marinette whispered.

Alya shrugged tightly. “We’re not Americans. It’s why I don’t livestream unless it’s in public.”

All the fight went out of Adrien, and Marinette’s tears spilled over.

Alya let go of some of her anger, and looked at Adrien earnestly. “Thank you for trusting me with this. I know it’s a big deal, not just because of the secret identity thing, but because of - God, Adrien, your _dad_.”

“Yeah,” Marinette managed to say, trying not to sound like she was crying. She stretched out a trembling hand to lay it on his back, trying to comfort him. He twitched in seeming surprise, but didn’t move away. “Your secret is safe with us.”

Adrien let out a shaky sigh and held up his phone. “There’s really nothing you can do with this?”

Alya shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

“Dammit.”

“If it’s any help,” Alya offered, “I’ll keep more of an eye out at future akuma attacks? Now that I know what to look for, there’s a possibility I could catch something.”

“Thanks, Alya,” Adrien said, but he just sounded defeated.

Marinette had thought this was the answer. It had seemed like such a good idea. How else were they going to - Adrien’s mom. If they got her out, she could tell the police what happened to her. And she was an adult, and close to him, and no one would need to know that Adrien was Cat Noir. “Adrien, what if we could find your mom?”

He straightened abruptly. “Yeah! I could go back and -”

“Dude,” Alya said. “You can’t go back there. Your dad is a legit supervillain who knows who you are now. That house is not a safe place to be.”

“He wouldn’t _attack_  you,” Marinette said, aghast. Like, he was still after the Miraculous, but he’d asked Adrien for it instead of trying immediately to akumatize someone. He wouldn’t directly hurt his only child. “Right?”

Adrien’s back twitched under her hand, and Marinette withdrew it, suddenly awkward again. Adrien reached up to rub the back of his head again. “No, Alya’s right. I don’t know where I’m going to go.”

“Stay with me,” Marinette blurted. Oh, no, why had she done that? Not only was he going to think she was weird and forward, but her parents would never go for it. “Um, I mean, your dad’s only seen me at the design competition, right? He doesn’t know we’re friends, and wouldn’t have any reason to think you’d go with me.”

She just kept digging the hole deeper.

“I think she’s right,” Alya said. “I’m pretty obvious about running the Ladyblog, plus I’m in your class. Though, I mean, is there anyone you know as Cat Noir you could go to, that isn’t connected to your normal life? Like Ladybug?”

Adrien laughed bitterly. “She’s still keeping her secret. So no, there’s no one else who knows.” He turned to look at Marinette. “I’d be very grateful.”

A squeak escaped her, and Marinette kind of wanted the earth to open up and swallow her whole. This was, like, the complete opposite of the time. Her crush was just awkward, and unproductive, and anyway he was  _Cat Noir_  and a total goof and one of her best friends and someone she shouldn’t be awkward around at all. “I - I’ll text my parents.”

She had to unfold to get her phone out, and her shin ended up pressed to Adrien’s back. Marinette could feel a blush spreading up her cheeks, and could only hope it wasn’t completely obvious. It was so not the time. She group-messaged her parents.

> _ >I have a friend who’s in trouble and needs a place to stay. Can he come over? _
> 
> _ <Maman: Do his parents know where he is? _
> 
> _ >His dad knows he’s gone, but he can’t go home. :((( _

The ellipsis of a message being typed appeared and disappeared a couple of times, and Marinette bit her lip. She looked up at Adrien. “Do you want to stay as Cat Noir? I think there wouldn’t be as many questions.”

He sighed. “We could just tell them?”

“No!”

Alya and Adrien both looked shocked at her outburst.

“I know you were willing to sacrifice your identity by putting out that recording, but that doesn’t mean you have to tell _everyone_  now.” She frowned down at her phone, where there was still an ellipsis. “You’re coming over as Cat Noir,” she declared.

> _ >He’s Cat Noir and Hawk Moth found out his civilian identity. Please? _

The ellipsis disappeared entirely for a moment, and then there was just a short message:

> _ <Maman: Bring him. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am now weirdly familiar with French privacy laws. This interpretation doesn't get into all of it, but given the power imbalances at play, the possible prison + fines are definitely a legit fear.


	7. Time to light the flame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Refuge in twilight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welcome to my happy place, also known as the land of shock and disjointed unreliable narrators. There were going to be more identity shenanigans, but then I was having too much fun. #sorrynotsorry

Adrien had no idea why Marinette was so willing to help him. Especially with the way she’d looked at him, not just that morning, but when he’d come into the room. But he was grateful. He had no idea where he’d go, otherwise. Anyone who knew his dad personally would probably make him go back, and none of the people he knew from work were precisely friends, and his dad knew Nino from his birthday party and Alya from the blog. The fact that he was aware of Marinette at all was less than ideal, but she was kind, and she already knew, and Adrien wasn’t going to get any better offers.

“Okay,” Alya said. “You need to leave as you, though, unless you want my family to know.”

Heavy silence fell. “Well,” said Marinette tentatively, “my parents are expecting us.”

Adrien swallowed. “Yeah. Um. We should go. See you in school tomorrow, Alya?”

“Yeah, tomorrow,” she said.

Adrien stood up, and found himself unexpectedly enveloped in a hug, Plagg nearly crushed. He patted Alya awkwardly on the shoulder, and she let him go just as abruptly.

Marinette hugged Alya, too, saying, “I’ll text you when we get in.”

They said their goodbyes to Alya’s family and descended the stairs in silence. Adrien had no idea what to say. He hadn’t meant to reveal his identity to Marinette, not really, though at this point there was a reckless thread running through him telling him that the secret had stopped being important. The idea that Ladybug would disapprove was the only thing reining him in at all.

“Um, it’s about a half hour walk to my house,” Marinette said. “It’d be faster if . . .”

Adrien looked over at her, and she was pointedly looking up. He dredged up a smile. “Say no more, Princess.”

Sometimes he wished that he didn’t spend so much time in dank alleys. He was, entirely against his will, becoming a connoisseur. The one almost at the end of Alya’s block was a pretty quality alley, mostly dry and not too smelly. He opened his shirt to look down at Plagg, who yawned and stretched dramatically. “Cheese,” he demanded.

Adrien sighed and grabbed the tin from his pocket. He’d really need to stock up, especially now - now that he wouldn’t have access to the Agreste kitchen. He held it open for Plagg and looked over to gauge Marinette’s reaction to his kwami. She looked interested, but not overwhelmed. Which was good, probably? “Uh, Marinette, this is Plagg. Plagg, hurry up.”

“Hi, Plagg,” Marinette said softly.

Plagg finished his cheese with a loud smack of his lips. “Hey. Okay, we can go.”

Adrien transformed, and some part of him expected Marinette to look - impressed or something. But if anything, she looks more at ease. Adrien bows with the kind of excessive flourish he usually employs when Chat Noir. “May I offer you a piggyback ride, Princess?”

She smiled at him, and nodded, and off they went. She was a surprisingly warm, comforting weight on his back. He knew his way to the bakery, but she directed him off-course at the last moment, up to the roof. He landed softly and looked around, trying to see if any of the neighbours were visibly watching. There was no point to hiding out if people Tweeted his location, though at least he knew he wouldn’t be outed on the Ladyblog.

Marinette opened the hatch to let them in, and her bedroom was just so - so _pink_. Adrien leapt directly from the loft down to the main part of her bedroom, because lingering in her bed in the gathering dark felt . . . odd. He looked around her room as she climbed down the stairs, and felt a blush rise as he spotted posters of himself. Himself as Adrien, and not Cat Noir.

Marinette made a muffled noise, then said, slightly too loud, “Anyway! My parents will be downstairs. My dad’s probably asleep, but my mom’s up.”

Adrien raised the trap door and gestured Marinette through, then followed her down into a far less monochromatic living room. Marinette’s mother was sitting in an armchair, feet tucked up next to her. She looked very mysterious and intimidating in the gloaming. “Is this related to what you were asking about earlier?”

Adrien - Cat Noir, he was a superhero right now - tried to look as inconspicuous and cute as possible. Marinette was all hunched up and tentative looking, and he hadn’t thought about how it would go with her parents, hadn’t thought about anyone’s relationship with their parents but his own, and that was so _stupid_. Marinette’s parents weren’t villains, had seemed like really nice people when he met them, but hadn’t he just seen earlier what happened when children did things their parents didn’t expect or approve of?

Marinette said, “Um, yes? Sort of. I found out that the best way I can help - we can help - is to help keep Cat Noir safe.”

Mme. Cheng narrowed her eyes at him. “Hmm. Well, welcome to our home, Cat Noir. Have you brought trouble with you?”

He swallowed hard. “No, I - I don’t think so. My - he - the person I need to hide from wouldn’t think to look with Marinette. I wouldn’t have come if I thought I’d put her - any of you in danger.” He was a terrible liar. There was nowhere else for him to go.

Mme. Cheng hesitated. “You can come and go without using the doors?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He would do very nearly anything it took to be allowed to stay. He was shaking again, he noticed distantly.

“You’ll protect my daughter first if something does come after you?”

“Mom,” Marinette whined.

“Shush, mon chou. He is your friend, but you are my daughter.” She folded her hands together in her lap.

Adrien nodded jerkily. “Yes.”

She nodded, apparently satisfied, and Adrien felt more of high fight-or-flight response fizzle away into exhausted misery. She slapped both hands on her thighs, declaring an end to the discussion, and stood. “Bathroom is downstairs, and you’ll sleep in Marinette’s room because Tom gets up at 4 and bumbles around like a bear until he’s had coffee. Now, what do you want to eat?”

“No, I - thank you. Thank you so much. I’m fine. Ma’am.” Adrien didn’t know how much longer he could stay standing. Plagg gave him supernatural endurance, but that was just for the body, and it was Adrien’s head that was a mess.

“Sit, and call me Sabine. Marinette, get out some bedding and make up your chaise.”

Adrien sat. Mme. Cheng handed him a plate with apple slices and crackers and cheese. Adrien ate mechanically until Marinette came back down. He watched her hug her mother and whisper, “Thank you.”

He looked at the crumbs left on his plate.

Sabine came over and put a hand on his shoulder, and it was all Adrien could do not to twitch violently away. Why did the women of this family keep touching him? What did they want? Normally he could tell what people wanted, from correcting a pose to getting his attention, but Marinette and Sabine just - touched him. “There are fresh toothbrushes under the bathroom sink,” she said. “I know it’s not even ten yet, but I suggest you go to bed. Tomorrow’s a schoolday for Marinette, at least.”

Adrien nodded, beyond words. Sabine took his plate, and he just sat there a moment until Marinette’s fidgeting snapped him back to the ordinary passage of time. “Um, I can show you what I have set up? Unless you want to go downstairs first.”

What was downstairs? Oh, right, bathroom. Toothbrush. “Yeah, I’ll come up in a minute.”

Adrien followed Sabine downstairs and went through the door she pointed to. He locked the door. “Plagg, claws off.”

Plagg popped out. “All of this transforming back and forth is exhausting, you know.”

“Yeah,” Adrien said, subdued. “Will you be able to hold it all night? I don’t want Marinette’s parents to come upstairs and be surprised.”

Plagg waved a paw dismissively. “Holding it isn’t any effort at all, just going back and forth and you using Cataclysm. It’s fine. Now, if you actually want to keep trouble away, you should tell Natalie you’ll be home tomorrow.”

Adrien blinked. Then blinked again. “That’s brilliant! He won’t have any reason to call the cops if I tell Natalie I’m safe!”

He dug out his phone and emailed Natalie.

> _ Staying with a friend tonight. Please tell my father that I will return home tomorrow after school. _

Ha, shit, he was supposed to study with Nino. Oh, well. Nino would understand. If he knew. He’d probably forgive him, at least. Adrien could send him all of his notes, maybe. Adrien refrained from contacting him. There’d be time at school. Would Natalie be able to tell where he was just from that email? No, probably not. Maybe not. They could definitely track his phone, though. Adrien took the battery out, and stuck phone and battery in separate pockets. He splashed cold water on his face and rummaged beneath the sink for a toothbrush. He brushed his teeth. He transformed again, and headed upstairs.


	8. one page at a time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sleepover!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double update today because I can, which brings us to the end of Act 2. I'd planned to pause anyway, but tomorrow is a major work thing and this clears out my buffer, so definitely at least a day or two until the next chapter. The response so far has made me really happy, so thank all of you for your enthusiasm. <3

Marinette brushed her teeth mechanically at her sink. Adrien Agreste was about to come up and sleep in her room! She’d changed her computer background, but there was no helping the posters on the walls. He’d already seen them. Which was kind of mortifying. But between the elation at Adrien being there, at him trusting her, the guilt over not telling him who she was, and worry for what would happen and what they could even do, she was so partitioned into disparate and conflicting emotions that it felt like she was filled with bees. She rinsed out her mouth. “Tikki? Do you want to sleep down here or up with me? He’ll be up soon, and I don’t want him to catch sight of you.”

Tikki sighed, finishing the last of her cookies. Marinette hadn’t exactly had time to grab any other snacks before coming up. “I’ll stay down here. I don’t know why you don’t -”

“Shhhh!” Marinette cocked her head to try to hear how close Cat Noir was to opening the trap door and gestured frantically for Tikki to phase into the drawer Marinette had made into a comfy nest. It had originally been to give Tikki her own place to sleep, but they both slept better when she was next to Marinette, so she mostly used it when Alya was over. Good thing it was already set up and ready to go, since who knew what Cat Noir would notice? And Marinette wasn’t ready to confess her secret. She grabbed one of her throw pillows and hugged it tight, looking around her room to make sure everything was in place.

Cat Noir popped through the trapdoor, ears swiveling to place her even before he looked around. He blinked when he saw her in pyjamas.

“Um,” Marinette said. “Do you want to sleep in my bed? It’s just, you’re so t-tall, and the chaise isn’t very long.”

“I wouldn’t dream of displacing you, Princess,” he said, but it sounded completely robotic.

Marinette hesitated. “Okay.” She put the throw pillow down on her desk chair and started towards the stairs. She paused when she no longer had him in her line of sight. “You - letting so many people know your secret identity is really brave. You must think Ladybug’s a coward.”

“No,” he snapped. “The difference is that my Lady still has things to protect. She could never be a coward.”

“Oh,” Marinette said, guilt precluding anything else. She still felt like a coward. “Well, good night.”

She hurried up to the loft and wrapped herself in the sheet she used for spring and summer. It was less good for hiding in and pretending the world didn’t exist than her winter quilt, but the only way to tolerate the rising temperatures of incipient summer.

She curled up under it, staring out at her room. Then she flipped to her other side. She usually fell asleep easily. She turned so she was sprawled on her back and staring up at the hatch to the roof. Still no sleep. She sighed. “Cat?”

A pause, and for a moment Marinette thought that he was already asleep. But his voice was perfectly clear when he said, “Yeah?”

“Where do you think he put your mother?” Marinette stared up at the darkness and regretted saying anything as the silence stretched even longer.

“That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it?” Fabric rustled below her in the gathering dark of true night. He sighed. “I think she’ll be in the house. Not as many people poking around as at the office, and he likes to have all his things locked up where he can keep an eye on them.”

The depth of bitterness in his voice hurt her heart.

“You’re not a thing,” she said firmly. “You’re a person, and you deserve to be treated like one.” That hadn’t been too far, right? It was something he should be told - something he should know, except his dad was the actual worst. No parent should ever treat their child the way Gabriel treated Adrien. She couldn’t believe she’d never seen how controlling Gabriel was in making his son model for all of his lines, and only for him. Gabriel treated Adrien almost identically to the way he treated his logo, and it made her sick that she’d never noticed. Adrien deserved so much better.

“Thanks, Marinette,” he said quietly.

Marinette couldn’t think of anything to fill the silence that came afterward, and while she was still trying, she fell asleep.

\--

Marinette woke up before her alarm, for once. Of course, instead of her alarm, it was her dad poking his head into her room and saying in what he probably thought was a whisper, “Wow, it’s really him.”

There was a thump and a yelp, and Marinette dived to the edge of the loft to see what was happening. Cat Noir was on the floor, hair even more disheveled than usual and his feline commitment to landing on his feet stranding him in an awkward crab position.

“Dad?”

“Sorry, honey, your mother just told me about our guest. Cat Noir, do you like croissants? I’ll bring a batch of croissants up from the bakery.” Her dad popped back out without waiting for an answer.

Marinette fell back on her bed and let out a groan. She should have remembered that her dad was a big fan. Sure, she’d had other stuff on her mind, but she and her dad had talked about Ladybug and Cat Noir a lot, and now it would be coming back to haunt her. She brought her pillow over her face and groaned again. She was going to die of embarrassment in front of her crush _twice_. Once for her posters and once for her dad.

“Princess?”

She relinquished her pillow and sat up. “If you don’t want the first shower, you should go down. Papa’s very serious about his croissants.”

He blinked at her, and she wondered how she could have missed it - the sclera were different, but his irises themselves were the same as both Adrien and Cat Noir. Of course, they acted differently; almost as differently as she acted from Ladybug. And she was so much smaller without the mask to hide behind, he’d never figure out it was her unless she got over her fear and told him. She raised an eyebrow at him and made a shooing motion, and he went downstairs.

Marinette sighed and jumped down off the loft to check on Tikki. She’d only barely opened the drawer when the trap door opened again, and she slammed the drawer shut, then whirled to shield the whole area with her body.

Cat Noir stood behind her, staring at her in confusion. He pointed over to a spot next to the chaise. “Sorry, I just forgot my baton. Don’t want to leave stuff lying around.”

“Right!” It came out more squeak than speech, so she cleared her throat and tried again. “Of course! You just startled me.”

He stared at her for a minute, then grabbed his baton. “Right, I’ll just get out of your hair, then.”

He disappeared back downstairs, and Marinette realized she was still splayed in front of her vanity like she was trying to protect the crown jewels from a cat burglar. She very slowly closed her eyes, hoping that when she opened them it would all have been a dream. She shouldn’t be acting so weird in front of Cat Noir - she knew better than anyone that he was a dork addicted to puns - but the fact that Cat Noir was also Adrien Agreste was tripping her up and sending her tumbling back into her most awkward habits. She was supposed to be past this level of awkwardness. She opened her eyes. Nope, not a dream. She sighed. “Tikki?”

Tikki floated up next to her head, looking sympathetic. “I’ll go hide in your bag, Marinette, but please bring me some food!”

She smiled at her. “Of course. Cookies and a croissant with jam. See you on the way to school?”

“Yep,” Tikki said, and flitted to Marinette’s purse.

Marinette grabbed her clean clothes, tucking her underwear between her pants and her shirt for maximum stealth, and ran down to the bathroom to shower. She didn’t want to abandon Adrien to her parents for too long lest they be completely embarrassing. At least with the patisserie already open they would only be able to talk to him one at a time. Though how was she going to even talk to him when she _did_  get upstairs? Everything was such a mess, and she was being a total awkward mess in the middle of it. Marinette stilled under the hot water. She had to move past her own feelings. Her personal and interior mess was nothing compared to the nightmare Gabriel Agreste had conjured up. She took a deep breath to steady herself. She had to be all business.

. . . but not so businesslike that he’d guess she was Ladybug.

It was very hard not to shriek in frustration.


	9. Escaped my capture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The search is on.

After breakfast, Marinette left through the front door and Cat Noir left through the roof. He took the rooftop route until he was nearly at the school, then changed back in the alley he’d used - yesterday. It had only been yesterday. The sheer weight of what had happened made him falter. He took a deep breath. “Plagg, claws in.”

He walked up to the school as himself, and was glad he’d put on fresh clothes the afternoon before. No one needed to see evidence of anything wrong. Alya and Marinette were talking on the steps, and Alya lit up like a firecracker when she saw him. He joined them.

Alya demanded, “So what’s the plan?”

“Uh - I need to go search my house when my dad’s not there, I think. I was hoping to do that today, but I don’t know when he’ll be at the office.” He was pretty used to Alya jumping right in to what she wanted to talk about.  _ In media res _ didn’t just seem to be her preferred style of video opening but her preferred style of life.

Alya narrowed her eyes. “So you need a distraction that would worry him enough to get him to his office for a significant chunk of time.”

“I could pull the fire alarm,” Marinette volunteered. “That would definitely be worrying, with all his clothes and designs.”

“Nah, girl,” Alya said. “You’ll get caught on camera - swanky offices always have cameras. It’d be better if I started a fire in the bathroom. You can’t ever put cameras in there, so it’s perfect.”

Adrien blinked at Alya. He’d never suspected her of arsonist tendencies.

Marinette bit her lip. “Are you sure? You’ll be in so much trouble if you get caught.”

Alya rolled her eyes. “If I get caught - which is a major ‘if’ - I’ll say I was there because I wanted to see if I could set up an interview about the hypnotist thing for the Ladyblog but I was nervous and snuck a smoke in the bathroom. Trust me.” She looked imploringly at Adrien. “Let me do this for you.”

Adrien rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed at having her willing to go that far for him. “Thank you. I’d really appreciate it.”

“Um! I could come with you to help search or keep watch let you know if your dad comes back,” Marinette offered.

Adrien hesitated - she was already too involved, and he wanted to protect her from his father, but he could really use the help, and didn’t want to call Ladybug. Even if his dad couldn’t take the Miraculous directly, having two under his roof seemed like a bad idea, no matter how much of an asset she’d be in a fight. If they did this right, there wouldn’t be any fight. “Yeah, that’d be great,” he said.

“We should do this now,” Alya said. “He won’t expect you to cut school.”

Adrien grinned at her. “Not with how hard I fought to get here in the first place. Marinette, you okay with doing this now?”

“Let’s get it done,” she said, looking solemn but determined. Adrien felt his smile fade. Right. Levity in the face of serious business wasn’t something everyone appreciated.

Alya nodded, and then impulsively hugged them both. “I’m off! I’ll text Nino to actually take good notes today.”

Alya ran past where Nino was starting to saunter up, then paused, turned back, and grabbed him. Adrien took a deep breath and turned back to Marinette. “Shall we, Princess?”

Marinette nodded.

\--

Adrien didn’t normally think about how big his house was. Yeah, sure, the secret passages were cool, and the dining room was depressingly echoing and empty, but it was where he lived, so he didn’t think about it much. The sheer size of it definitely registered now, though, with the prospect of having to search it. He boosted Marinette up over the fence that he was used to just vaulting with his baton. Being Cat Noir would definitely make this part easier, but he needed more supplies for Plagg.

They crouched down along the side of the house until they could hear a car roaring away. Alya had done quick work.

For a desperate and covert mission, it was deeply disconcerting that their next logical course of action was to go in the front door. “We basically don’t have people over, so there’s only Natalie, the Gorilla, a cleaning crew that comes once a week, and Vincent. The Gorilla will have driven my dad to the office, and Natalie’s probably with him, so that only leaves Vincent in the kitchen.”

“If your mom was in the kitchen, you’d probably have found her by now,” Marinette pointed out.

Adrien nodded. “She’s not in the secret passages, either, or I would have found her yesterday.” He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “Stop by my room, then up to the attic? I know you said you were going to be lookout, but there are enough weird architecture things in here that we’re going to go over each room carefully.”

“That’s fine,” Marinette said, looking around the foyer. She seemed put off, and honestly he couldn’t blame her. Looking at it today, it just looked like a pretentiously hostile museum.

He lead her to his room and opened his small fridge. It used to have sports drinks and juice in it, but was now almost entirely dedicated to camembert. Which kind of sucked, but was on balance a really fantastic tradeoff. Plagg stuffed his face while Adrien grabbed a backpack to shove the rest of the cheese into. Who knew how long before he’d be able to come back?

There were only two staircases up to the attic, so the first thing once they were upstairs was to backtrack to the end of the house above Adrien’s room. The room at the end was surprisingly bright and open, a large round tilt and turn window letting the light in and illuminating discarded dress forms. Two of the walls were too obviously external to warrant investigation, but the two of them went over the rest of the room carefully, Marinette even checking the floors. They made their way carefully across the attic, and Adrien was grateful for the fact that it wasn’t broken into very many rooms and that most of the boxes were far too small to stash a person. There were a lot of them, though, and Adrien made a point of shifting at least the top box of any stack taller than him. If he were hiding something this awful, he’d disguise it. They all moved easily, and Adrien’s anticipatory horror ebbed somewhat in the face of irritation at how many clothes his dad had kept. There were a few furniture pieces, too, but they checked out, and so did the walls. Soon enough all that was left was the room at the opposite end of the house from Adrien’s room, and Adrien wanted to move through it quickly. They’d have to go down to the main floor next, and who knew how long his dad would be away?

He turned the knob to the last door and it stuck, the first to have done so. Adrien tried it again. Locked. “I think I hit paydirt,” he said over his shoulder.

Marinette looked over from where she was tapping one of the walls to see if it was false. “Yeah?”

Adrien backed up, then rammed the door with his shoulder. It didn’t burst open like it did in the movies; he just rebounded with a sore shoulder. “Ow. Yeah, it’s locked. Plagg, claws out!”

As Cat Noir he hit the door again, and this time it burst open.

Marinette joined him at the doorway, but he couldn’t go in. The room was dark. Light shone in from the window, but some kind of shutter aperture narrowed it to a dull beam that did nothing to lessen the shadows. White moths flitted in and out of the beam of light.

“Oh,” Marinette said softly.

Adrien cleared his throat. “Right. Well, let’s investigate the lair.”

Adrien went in first, and then wondered why they’d spent so long looking so carefully. A cocoon hung close to one wall, the sloping ceiling meaning that the fuzzy oblong of silk rested also on the floor. An inarticulate noise escaped him, and he started clawing at it.

Marinette joined him, pulling the swathes of silk away from the chrysalis Adrien slowly bared. The moths, disturbed by the activity, rose in clouds around them.

The chrysalis inside the cocoon was hard, harder than any normal chrysalis. It felt like steel under his claws. He only realized he was crying when he stopped being able to breathe through his nose. He ran his claws down the outside of the chrysalis, scoring it and making a terrible noise. He didn’t dare use Cataclysm in case it also destroyed his mother, and he didn’t dare slash too deeply for the same reason. So he carved the same grooves over and over, time ticking away in the back of his mind until his father would return. Minutes ticked away - hours, centuries - until finally he could feel a little give under his claws, a sense of malleability. “I’m almost through.”

“What do you need me to do?”

He looked over at Marinette, and it looked like she’d been crying, too, but her hands were steady as she cleared the area around the chrysalis. “Be ready to catch her.”

She nodded, and he got back to work, scratching one last time. The chrysalis gave with a sort of pop, and clear fluid started leaking out. He couldn’t look. He wedged both hands in the small opening he’d made and pried them apart. A crack fissured down the side of the chrysalis, and more fluid escaped. A smell assailed him even through his congestion: sweetness and dust and rot. He sobbed, once, because what if she was already dead? He couldn’t give in and give up and curl up and cry, though, because he had to get her out no matter what. Adrien pulled again, using all the strength being Cat Noir afforded him, and the chrysalis popped open like a chestnut in a fire.

The figure inside slid out into the room on a wave of thick transparent fluid. It was too dark to make out details like whether it was even his mother and whether she was even alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, I don’t actually _endorse_ arson as the solution to all your problems, but Alya’s already a journalist so I couldn’t resist completing the callback to Tom’s advice. Also hadn't intended quite so much of a cliffhanger, but this was already longer than planned  & I am a terrible person.


	10. fire in my eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marinette hovered helplessly.

Marinette hovered helplessly. She’d been supposed to catch Mme. Agreste, but how - she didn’t even look _human_. Adrien was standing there, looking stricken to the core. Shaking, Marinette kneeled next to Mme. Agreste. She landed in some of the viscous fluid that had been insulating her in the chrysalis, and it wasn’t blood-warm, not quite, but it was warm enough to be unsettling. She thought, distantly, that she would never get the smell out of her pants.

Her hand as she reached out seemed as if it belonged to someone else, and her insides knotted in horror. Mme. Agreste was wearing a red dress that tangled around her legs in a sodden heap, but her shoulder was bare. Bare, and pale, and covered in slime. Marinette’s hand shook uncontrollably, but she touched Mme. Agreste’s shoulder. Her skin gave way like fresh polyfill. Marinette whimpered and pulled her hand back.

The skin bounced back. Her arm moved, reaching towards the light. Marinette and Adrien both screamed.

“Mom?” Adrien’s voice came out tiny and broken.

Marinette shuffled backwards. Okay, she was alive. Okay. And free, now. But she was remembering way back in primary school when they’d studied moths and butterflies. The way a pupa changed in the chrysalis. She had liquefied Mme. Agreste on her pants. She needed to call 112. Mme. Agreste needed to go to the hospital. Could she transform and heal her? Would more Miraculous magic only make things worse? “Tikki, what do I do?”

Her voice only came out quiet because she couldn’t make it louder. It didn’t matter. Adrien was still frozen like he’d been hit by Lady Wifi’s pause command. Marinette felt a light touch on her cheek and only realized it was Tikki after she’d flinched violently away. “Call Master Fu,” she said. “He’ll be able to help.”

“Call Master Fu,” Marinette repeated numbly. She fumbled for her pocket, then realized her hand was still covered in slime and wiped it frantically on her pants. When it was dry, she dug out her phone. She’d saved Master Fu’s information after Tikki recovered. It was hard to scroll down to his number with her shaking fingers. She finally got to his name and pressed the call button, and the ringing seemed loud, loud in the silence. She looked over at Adrien, and he’d sunk to his knees, though he didn’t seem to be able to bring himself to touch her either.

“You have reached Master Fu’s Massage Shop, this is Master Fu,” came Master Fu’s detached and cheerful voice.

“Please,” Marinette started, and then she couldn’t stop. “Please, please, you have to come, Adrien’s mom’s been in a chrysalis for _years_  and she’s all over the floor and I think she’s alive but I don’t know when Hawk Moth will be back. Please, tell me what to do, you have to save her, pl -”

His voice, when he interrupted, was the kind of smooth assurance that made her heart slow from panicked overload. “Where are you?”

“The attic, the attic, he made it his lair, I can see where he lets the akuma out even though he never let her out he just kept her here -”

“A house? What house?”

Marinette knew she had to pull it together, had to tell Master Fu what he needed to know and help Mme. Agreste and make sure Adrien was holding it together and get them out of here before Gabriel came home and wrecked everything even worse, but it was all she could do to keep her babbling remotely on track. “Agreste, the Agreste house, Gabriel - and Adrien - and she has to be okay, you have to make her okay, please, please come.”

“I will be there in 30 minutes,” he said, sounding utterly serene. “We will see what can be done. Try to breathe. I must hang up now to drive.”

He hung up. She couldn’t believe he hung up. Her chin wobbled.

Adrien grabbed some of the discarded silk and started gently, gently wiping away the . . . goop.

“When moths come out, they have to harden,” she said, and the words felt like they came from a long way away.

“Are you saying I should just let her - let her _lie_  here?” He sounded deeply angry with her, more than she’d ever heard Cat Noir be angry at an akuma.

She brought her knees up to hug them, then realized what she’d done when her chin hit the damp material. She shuddered, but hugging her knees still made her feel better no matter what was on them. Tears leaked down her face.

Adrien stopped, the silk balled up in his black-gloved hands.

“Help is coming,” Marinette said.

“I wish Ladybug was here,” he said, sounding forlorn.

“I’m sorry!” Marinette burst out. The outburst turned to sobbing, because it might be the right thing - she could fix so much as Ladybug, wouldn’t it be worth trying? - but it could make it worse and she couldn’t, she couldn’t. She squeezed her eyes closed and rocked back and forth and hated herself a little for not being able to be there for Adrien. But he was on the other side of his semi-liquefied mother, and Ladybug might be capable of miraculous things and Marinette might be able to get things done in a crisis, too, but right now she was utterly and completely incapable of crossing over the mass of flesh and ichor that was almost his mother.

They stayed where they were long enough that moths alit on each of them, indifferent to the shape of the still surfaces beneath them. Mme. Agreste looked like she was breathing, but she didn’t say anything or move on her own.

The door creaked open, and Marinette and Adrien both startled hard. Adrien rose to his feet, baton in hand.

“Master Fu!” Marinette felt weak with relief.

Adrien demanded, “How did you get in here?”

“I go where I am needed,” Master Fu said implacably, setting something down in the doorway. He gestured towards the window. The narrow opening irised wider, letting the golden light of mid-morning flood the room.

It made everything worse. Mme. Agreste’s skin was revealed to be greyish-pale and Adrien’s - Cat’s - suit was covered in the fluid that had been in the chrysalis with her. Adrien hissed at the light. Marinette fell very still as the disturbed moths took up their aimless fluttering again.

Master Fu crouched by Mme. Agreste’s head and held his hands out towards her, palms flat several inches from her body. “Hmm,” he said.

“What are you doing?” Adrien asked harshly.

“I am determining what manner of healing is needed. She should not be moved, but much can be done here,” Master Fu said, and Marinette didn’t understand how he was so calm.

Adrien slumped, and Marinette belatedly recognized that some of the wildfire burning in his gaze had been anticipatory grief. Marinette pulled herself together by will alone and let go of her legs. She’d lost feeling in one of her ankles from how tightly she’d been holding herself. She hauled herself to her feet, then closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She’d keep it together now. She shouldn’t have fallen apart. Adrien shouldn’t have to face this alone. Full of purpose, she stepped up as close to Mme. Agreste’s body as she dared. “What can I do?”

“I will know in just a moment,” Master Fu said, moving his hands slowly through the air above Mme. Agreste. The puddle around her looked like it was getting smaller.

The moths suddenly swirled together and streamed out the door. Gabriel was home.

Marinette stared wildly at Adrien. They weren’t ready!

“Go,” said Master Fu. “Take the sword.”

That - that couldn’t be right. Taking a weapon to see his father was - what he was doing, as he scrambled after the moths, scooping up the sword Master Fu had brought. Marinette’s hands flew up to cover her mouth. He couldn’t be planning to fight his own father. She took a step after him.

“I will need your Lucky Charm,” Master Fu said.

“So I can fix it? I can? Oh, no, I wish I’d known that earlier. Tikki - Tikki, where are you?” Marinette looked around the room, looking for a splash of red amidst the white and grey.

“Right here, Marinette,” Tikki said from her purse.

Marinette slumped, then said, “Spots on!”

The Lucky Charm, when she called it, was just a spotted cube. It didn’t do anything or open: it just was. She threw the perfectly generic object up and called, “Miraculous Ladybug!”

The wash of reddish-pink light restored a normal hue to Mme. Agreste’s skin and swept all traces of fluid from the floor. Mme. Agreste gasped and started to blink herself into alertness.

“Good,” Master Fu said, and effortfully stood up. “Oh, my back. Remember, Ladybug, you can cure anything caused by Miraculous magic, but not natural causes. I will leave now. It will be better if you stay up here a few moments.”

He hobbled to the door, then paused. “I am sorry I could not wait until you were older.”

Marinette wanted to tell him to stay, wanted to ask what he was talking about, but Mme. Agreste started coughing, and Marinette had to go to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was supposed to be some kind of pause in the trauma, but that didn’t work out. Only two chapters to go! I will try to have the next one up tomorrow, but requires either research or remembering details of stuff I learned in passing eight years ago (so research).
> 
> Also you have to forgive Adrien for not noticing Tikki right away. He's having a bit of a day.


	11. I won't apologize

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final confrontation.

He had to keep his dad away from his mom and Marinette. That was the thought pounding through Adrien’s veins as he raced after the cloud of moths descending through the house. They lead him unerringly towards the foyer. He dug his claws into the wall to help swing around the corner and took the stairs to the second floor two at a time. The man up there with them would help heal her, and Adrien’s only job was to keep them safe. He could do that.

It occurred briefly to him that he should detransform, but the _cat_  was already out of the bag. A little extra durability wouldn’t be a bad thing, and he wanted to face his father as his better self. He arrived at the head of the split staircase, and his father was standing on the landing, moths swarming around him. The front door stood open, like Gabriel had been in too much of a hurry to bother to close it. He was never off-balance enough to forego things like that.

“You were to stay out of my personal spaces,” his father said coldly.

“Yeah, well, I decided I wanted a parent back,” he said. A week ago, he’d have settled for any parent, for his father showing even a sliver of affection. That was no longer an option. The sword was still in his hand, the weight familiar like his practice epee. He glanced down at it for the first time. Oh. It was an epee, or rather a proto-epee. A dueling rapier. Adrien felt sick. He should put it down, throw it away from him, but he couldn’t bring himself to, not yet. He firmed his grip and looked up at his father.

His face was drawn into an icy rage “What did you do?” 

“I got her _out_ , and we’ll be leaving.”

“No,” his father said, very quiet. The moths flew out from him like rainbows on the swelling bubble of his rage. “Wings up.”

Purple light welled up from floor, and when it cleared, Hawk Moth stood there. He lifted his cane and twisted it with harsh, precise motions. The body of it fell away, revealing a long, thin sword. His father threw the sheath away from him, and it rolled to a stop beneath the portrait of them as father and son. It had been a lie when it was painted, pretending to be a family when there was a gaping hole where his mother used to be. It was more of a lie now as they stood beneath it wearing their real faces. “I don’t know what you expect to accomplish with this defiance, Adrien, but it is over. You will surrender your Miraculous and go to your room while I attempt to repair the damage you’ve done.”

“Yeah, no, I don’t think so.” He hesitated, and knew that Ladybug would be disappointed in him, but Gabriel was, through all of it, still his father. “If you leave now, I’ll let you go. I won’t tell anyone who you are.”

“You are a ridiculous child,” Hawk Moth said, stalking forward. “You will remove yourself or I will remove you.”

Adrien fell into a fencing stance. _This was why_. He had no idea who Master Fu was, how he knew, but his father had fenced since he was a child. That was why he’d signed Adrien up for it. Adrien knew he’d be better able to defend from a fencer with a sword than with his baton, no matter that he was used to fencing being sport and the baton serious business.

He advanced down the stairs, wanting to meet his father on equal ground for once. Hawk Moth tucked his off arm behind his back, his posture so familiar and habitual to his father that it was disconcerting, even having seen the transformation.

His father struck. Adrien parried, sliding his epee around his father’s so that he scored a clean hit while his father’s blade went wide over his shoulder. After a point, you recovered your initial positions. Adrien did so automatically even as blood bloomed black on his father’s purple blazer. He couldn’t look away from it. He’d done that. How could he have done that? 

His father didn’t fall back on formal fencing rules. He also didn’t seem particularly affected by his injury, relentlessly pursuing Adrien. He scored Adrien’s leg, but luckily Cat Noir’s suit wasn’t damaged. His skin was intact. Adrien retreated up the stairs, trying desperately to counter his father. He needed to keep him away from the rest of the house, at least until they could get away. His father thrust for his stomach. It hit, but didn’t puncture. Adrien wasn’t sure what would. His father thrust again, and Adrien managed to parry this time. He riposted, and their disparity in height compounded with the differential from the stairs. The hit was solid.

Hawk Moth’s eyes widened in surprise behind his mask. His suit, it appeared, was not invulnerable. Blood welled up dark on his throat, then unnaturally vivid against his brooch. Adrien couldn’t breathe. “I’m not - I didn’t mean to -”

His words meant nothing. He couldn’t come up with any. They didn’t matter. He’d stabbed his father in the throat.

His father opened his mouth, but no words came out. Gabriel Agreste had no last words as he swayed and fell to the stairs. As he fell, darkness rippled out from him, a wash of purple that left him as himself and stained all the moths in sight. They fled out the front door, still ajar. Adrien should stop them. He should do something. It felt like the moment he moved, he would fly apart. The world would fly apart. The rapier fell from his numb fingers and clattered down the stairs.

The sob burst from him like a breaking dam, like something had broken permanently in his chest. He collapsed over it, folding in two down into the floor. He didn’t land in blood. There was very little blood anywhere but his suit. Adrien couldn’t bring himself to reach out and touch him. He couldn’t - he couldn’t. He’d done this. He’d done this and he was a monster and it was _over_.

It was over.

He wanted Plagg, to say something or do something or distract him, but he was crying too hard to get the words out and couldn’t move to take the ring off. All he could do was sob.

Hands touched him, and he started violently. No no no no - oh, God, Ladybug. When did she get here? He threw himself towards her and wrapped her in a desperate hug, tucking his face down into her neck to cry.

She ran her hands up and down his back, and the warmth of her made it easier to breathe. He could tell she was looking past him, though. “I didn’t mean to, I didn’t, I never meant to, it was an accident, I just couldn’t let him - what he did - did you know what he - I -”

“Shh,” she whispered in his ear. “It’ll be okay. We’ll be okay.”

He straightened away from her on a sudden thought. “Where’s Marinette? My mom - is my mom okay? I have to check -”

She took his face between her hands. “She’s okay. We’re all okay. I left her upstairs when she stopped coughing.”

He was shaking, shaking so hard he didn’t think he could stand. But he had to. “Mar -”

“I’m here, Kitty,” Ladybug said, not letting go of his face.

He blinked at her, but his eyes were refusing to focus quite right. There was one spot left on her earrings. Her eyes were so blue. They didn’t fit in his nightmare of black and white and purple and red. He blinked at her again. “Wh -”

The last dot beeped away, and red light rose up around them both.

“Marinette?” Adrien didn’t know how to feel. She’d let him - she’d left him alone in exposing his identity, feeling desperate and vulnerable. But if he’d known, he never would have gone with her, not risked her identity. That wasn’t a problem now. She’d been there for him, with or without the mask.

She nodded, eyes wide and worried.

He couldn’t - he’d think through this later. In the meantime, she was here. He stuck his face back in the crook of her neck and just tried to breathe. “My mom’s okay?”

“Master Fu healed her, and then I took care of the rest. She said she needed to collect herself before she came down. She’s going to be fine.” Marinette wrapped her arms around him again, this time tentatively. He wished she’d hold him tighter. “She’ll be fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I sometimes feel like I should tag this as ‘whump’ or ‘misery porn,’ but I didn’t mean for it to be and I swear I won’t leave Adrien down in the dark forever. Also double update because I'm excited and may or may not be able to post tomorrow based on whether or not I can tag along on a thing.
> 
> Also all your comments have been inspiring me to work on this a lot, so thanks. <3


	12. it ain't your rainbow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aftermath.

Marinette kept hugging Adrien, trying not to look at Gabriel Agreste lying dead on the stairs. It was . . . cleaner than trying to go to the police. The thought was terrible, and she hated that she could even think it. She dug her fingers into his hair, scritched the back of his head like he really was the distressed kitten he was acting like. She rubbed her cheek against the top of his head, too. The physical connection was grounding.

Gradually, Adrien’s crying slowed until he was just holding onto her, hiccuping.

A soft sound brought Marinette’s head up, instantly on alert. Mme. Agreste was picking her way slowly down the opposite stairs, hand tight on the railing. Adrien didn’t notice, still pressed tight against her neck. Mme. Agreste paused at the bottom, looking at her husband’s dead body. She looked up at Marinette, and looked - peaceful and a little lost. “Adrien?”

In her arms, Adrien stiffened like he’d been hit by lightning. “Mom?”

He pulled away enough to look back over his shoulder. “Mom! You’re okay!”

He tried to stand, but didn’t seem to be able to manage it. He ended up sitting back down on the stairs, pressed up against Marinette.

Mme. Agreste blinked at him, and Marinette realized with a sinking heart that Adrien was still Cat Noir and it had been years since she’d seen him even as a civilian. She widened her eyes at Mme. Agreste and tilted her head sharply down towards Adrien. “Oh, baby,” she said, discovery and wistfulness in her voice. “You got so big.”

Silence fell, and the gap between Adrien and Mme. Agreste seemed unbridgeable, filled as it was with Gabriel’s body. “I - I’m not too steady on my feet,” Mme. Agreste said. “Can I get a hug?”

“Of course!” Adrien bolted upright, without issue this time. Marinette’s side felt very cold in his absence, but she smiled when Adrien hugged his mother carefully. She couldn’t imagine what it would be to lose her mother for years, but she imagined that she’d be overjoyed to be reunited.

Mme. Agreste closed her eyes and pressed her lips to the side of Adrien’s head, next to the mask. She stayed that way a moment, then looked over Adrien’s shoulder at Marinette. “What’s the date?”

Marinette hesitated, then told her. 

Mme. Agreste paled, and closed her eyes again. It looked for a moment like Adrien was the only reason she was still upright. She took a deep breath. “That is much longer than I expected.”

Marinette shrugged helplessly. “We only found out yesterday.”

“I didn’t mean - thank you. Thank both of you. You’re good kids.”

Adrien made a cracked noise. Marinette smiled tightly and tucked her hands under her thighs. It was objectively true, she guessed, but it didn’t _feel_  true.

Mme. Agreste carded her fingers through Adrien’s hair, but her focus had switched. She looked distant and calculating, and Marinette couldn’t help but be disappointed. Adrien deserved warmth, not calculation, especially with what he’d had to do. “Do you have somewhere safe you can go? I set fire to the attic, and someone should have called the fire department by now. I can . . . take care of everything, but you kids shouldn’t have to be involved.”

Marinette blinked. Adrien drew back from his mother to stare at her. He asked incredulously, “You set fire to the attic?”

“Yes, sweetie,” she said, reaching down to support herself on the railing again. “I couldn’t let it stay as it was.”

A chill ran down Marinette’s spine. What would it do to a person to be trapped in a chrysalis for years? “We can go back to my place. My parents will understand us skipping school.”

Mme. Agreste nodded. “Good. You should go. Oh - first, do you have a phone?”

“Yeah,” Adrien said, and reached for pockets he didn’t have. He stared down at his clawed hands for a moment. “Plagg, claws off.”

He detransformed, and Plagg immediately ducked behind him out of Mme. Agreste’s view. That worried Marinette even more, because Plagg didn’t exactly seem shy. Plagg ducked inside Adrien’s overshirt as Adrien fished out his phone. Adrien frowned down at Plagg, but didn’t say anything, which maybe meant he’d picked up how strange his mother’s behavior was. Adrien handed his phone to his mother.

She looked at it askance, then laughed mirthlessly. “These have changed. Go. I imagine things haven’t changed so much that the emergency response will be slow for money.”

“Adrien,” Marinette said quietly, “we can always come back, but we can’t change our minds the other way.”

Adrien looked at her, and his eyes widened. “And you don’t need to be here at all. Right.” He leaned in to peck his mother on the cheek. “I’ll see you later, Mama. Marinette’s number is in my phone - please call when you want me to come back.”

“It’ll be a while,” she said, almost absently. “There will be press. We shall tell them - we shall tell them a story. I was . . . kidnapped. By a cult. I returned - two weeks ago? Yes. And we have been keeping it quiet until I was well. I will come up with details. Now allez-vous!”

Marinette stood, and skirted Gabriel’s body. She took Adrien’s hand and led him down the stairs and out the door. It felt strange that it was still day and stranger yet that it was still morning. Marinette turned her face towards the sun and basked in its warmth for a moment, until Adrien tugged her hand.

“C’mon, we should get away from here,” he said.

It registered abruptly that she was holding hands with her crush. With Adrien! She’d dreamed about this. If it were any other day, the sheer fact of the contact would have her blushing and stuttering and stumbling on the sidewalk. It wasn’t any other day, though. She tightened her hand on his and walked faster.

They were a block away and around the corner by the time the firetruck passed. Adrien turned his hand in hers and laced their fingers together. Marinette’s heart beat faster, and the continued towards her parents’ patisserie and her parents’ warm, straightforward affection.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annddd we're done! Thank you all so much for your comments along the way: they were really encouraging.
> 
> Obviously there are a lot of things left unanswered. There are . . . at least two sequels planned. I'm gonna try to get at least one other WIP finished before I start posting, but I've fallen headfirst in love with Miraculous Ladybug and this fandom, so it'll probably be soon.


End file.
